RoMac says nuh-uh to fighting Georges St Pierre

Because we’re jerks and we enjoy drama, we’re all kinda fixated on Rory MacDonald fighting his training partner and mentor Georges St Pierre. When word came out of the Tristar gym that the two weren’t actually training together, it didn’t take long for a rumor that Rory was distancing himself from Georges to spread. Not so, according to Tristar coach Firas Zahabi:

“They’re both in the same practice room,” Zahabi said. “Georges is fighting a southpaw. But GSP doesn’t look like an Ellenberger in sparring. Georges is fighting a southpaw who throws big punches. Rory chips away at you and is a different style of punching than Hendricks. We’re using different bodies – we’re still working together. We’re in the practice room daily together, and practicing together. But after Rory’s fight, he’ll back to training with Georges as normal.”

“No, I won’t be fighting Georges. When the fight comes, if we ever had to meet up, we wouldn’t fight. I’m not fighting him,” said MacDonald in a conversation captured by MMAFighting, stating he’d rather bulk up than face his close friend. “I don’t want to think about it until the time. I’ll keep fighting. He’ll keep fighting. It’ll work its way out. I could go up (to middleweight) for sure.”

Fortunately for Rory there’s a sudden abundance of welterweight contenders to take some of the pressure off him. You know if things were looking stale Dana White would start ratcheting up the pressure, Evans vs Jones style. And we all saw how that turned out: Evans ended up out of a camp, out of contention, and seriously depressed. Better to just get comfortable with that ‘Second best welterweight at Tristar’ designation and save the bulking up for a move to middleweight rather than post-loss binging because you betrayed your friend.